First Lines: January 2021 edition

Below are the first lines of the books I finished reading in January.  I was able to complete 6 books only because I had a huge break from work at the end of December.

 

 

Book 1

The first week of July 2016 was tumultuous. The nation was rocked by two killings of black men at the hands of law enforcement officials.

 

 

Book 2

The Speech for the Defence

This is the story of a five-year sojourn that I and my family made on the Greek island of Corfu.  It was originally intended to be a mildly nostalgic account of the natural history of the island, but I made a grave mistake by introducing my family into the book in the first few pages.

 

Book 3

In February 1884, just as Anna Hall Roosevelt learned that she was pregnant, a blinding fog closed over Manhattan. Thicker and heavier than any in recent memory, it shut the city down for days.

 

Book 4

Prologue: Straightening Cobwebs

It is almost impossible, by today’s standards of celebrity, to comprehend the level of fame that Boris Pasternak engendered in Russia from the 1920s onwards.

Book 5

Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.  For some they come in with the tide.  For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sign, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time.  That is the life of men.

Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget.  The dream is the truth.  Then they act and do things accordingly.

 

Book 6

Over the past few years, conversations about politics have started feeling toxic and hopeless.  People we sit in the pew with every Sunday have begun to feel like strangers, and loved ones sitting across our dinner tables feel like enemies.

 

The titles and authors revealed:

 

Book 1

There’s A Storm Comin’: How the American Church Can Lead Through Times of Racial Crisis   by Dr. Harold Dorrell Briscoe, Jr.  © 2020.  194 pages.  

An interesting approach – using what the author learned about mitigation of climate change consequences, and applying that to how church leaders can engage in mitigation of racial crises.

 

Book 2

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell. 271 pages.  © 1956.

This book would have been quite amusing, but the older brother is a narcissist, and that made it difficult reading for me.  If you like flowing, adjective-full descriptions of animals and nature scenes, interspersed with strange family dynamics, this is the book for you.  The writing did improve as the book proceeded.  Some really funny scenes.  For book club.

 

Book 3

Eleanor by David Michaelis,  © 2020.  536 pages of text; including footnotes, index: 698 pages.

A biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, given to me by my brother and sister-in-law, in recognition of Pennsylvania voting for Biden-Harris in the 2020 election, and my part in making that happen. Eleanor Roosevelt was an amazing person.  While she grew up in a rich family, it was by no means a happy childhood.  She ended up being a spokesperson and activist for peace, human rights, civil rights, and dignity.  She was often unsure of herself, which I can relate to. This book tells her story in an engaging way.

 

 

Book 4

Lara: The untold love story and the inspiration for Doctor Zhivago, by Anna Pasternak. 310 pages.  © 2017

The true story behind Pasternak’s novel – his affair with Olga Ivinskaya, as researched by a journalist who is the great-niece of Boris Pasternak.  Despite Pasternak’s passionate declarations of love for Olga, he was never able to leave his second wife Zinaida and family. Olga was sent to the gulag (Soviet concentration camp) twice.  Olga’s daughter Irina was sent to a concentration camp – most probably for revenge against Pasternak.  For book club.

 

Book 5

Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston. © 1937.  219 pages

This is a singular book.  To me, this book is about agency, or the lack of it - being able to make choices to control your own destiny.  I hope to say more about this book later, but the way things are going… well, we’ll see.  I read it for book club.

 

Book 6

I Think You’re Wrong (But I’m Listening): A guide to grace-filled political conversations  by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers.  © 2019.   224 pages.

I did a speed read of the book.  The points made and the exercises seem excellent, but I didn’t engage in doing them.  In a sense, given the insurrection a month ago today at the U.S. Capitol, this book seems a little out of date.  The authors have a podcast, which is more current than this book, but I haven’t had time to listen. 

What’s on your reading list?

Groundhog Day 2021

Selections from my Equal Justice Initiative History of Racial Injustice calendar.  I’ve chosen historical items from after 1900, all from the month of January.  

Jan 2, 1944

William James Howard, a Black 15-year-old, is lynched by three white men in Suwannee County, Florida, after one of the men accuses Howard of writing a love note to his daughter.

Jan 4, 2008

Ohio SWAT team fatally shoots Black mother, injures baby in her arms.

Jan 7, 1966

After student activist Samuel Younge Jr. is killed by a white gas station attendant because Younge insisted on using the white bathroom, Tuskegee University students march in protest.

Jan 11, 1960

Georgia Governor Ernest Vandiver Jr. threatens to withhold state funding from any public school that attempts to integrate Black and white students.

Jan 15, 1991

In Board of Education of Oklahoma City Schools v. Dowell, U.S. Supreme Court ends federal desegregation order even though it will cause racial re-segregation of school system.

January 19, 1930

For five days, white mobs harass, beat, shoot, and destroy property of Filipino farmworkers in Watsonville, California, following interracial dancing and economic competition.

January 24, 1956

Men who murdered Emmett Till confess in Look magazine.

January 30, 1956

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s house in Montgomery, Alabama is bombed while he speaks at a mass meeting; King later addresses angry crowd and pleads for nonviolence.

* * * * * * * * *

Black history made in the past ~ 2 years in January, as hastily compiled by me

January 5, 2021

Senator Raphael Warnock wins election to become the first Black U.S. Senator from Georgia.

(Black people have been living in Georgia for ~260 years.)

January 6, 2021

Insurrectionists storm the U.S. Capitol Building.  The Confederate Flag is carried through the halls of U.S. Government.  Most of those involved are white.  Most walk away that day without being arrested, a stark contrast to those involved in protests against the killing of George Floyd, a Black man killed by a White police officer.

January 14, 2019

US Representative Steve King of Iowa is stripped of his committee assignments, following his white supremacist remarks.  (He lost his seat in the primary election of 2020. He had been introducing racist legislation and public comments for ~ 17 years.)

January 20, 2021

Madam Vice President Kamala Harris becomes the first Black woman VPOTUS.

January 29, 2019

New York City Reaches $3.3 Million Settlement With Kalief Browder's Family.

Kalief Browder, arrested at age 16,  was imprisoned for three years without trial, on accusation of stealing a backpack. His imprisonment included two years in solitary confinement, and also beatings by guards and other inmates.  The charges were dismissed and he was released from prison.  He later committed suicide.  

Little Progress on Civil Rights Issues

Inspiration, Deficiency, and Nuts

In November, my friend from college baked cranberry bread, and inspired me to do the same.  Except I did not bake it until this week.  That’s delayed inspiration.  

It was a bit time consuming, but there is merit in completing the task of slicing each cranberry in half, in zesting the orange -- you must not skip this, O Best Beloved! --  and in chopping the nuts.  Cranberry nut bread requires much prepping of ingredients and following the recipe.  No creativity required.

A few days ago, another friend posted this:

 

Always search for truth.

Show your work and cite your source.

Evidence is key.

 

And then this:

 

Facts facts facts facts facts.

Facts facts facts facts facts facts facts,

Facts facts facts facts facts.

 

My haiku proficiency is inconsistent.

 

I thought my friend was, in fact, highly proficient, and she inspired me to write my own haiku in appreciation of hers. I labored with the words, and wrote this:

 

Factual haikus

from my friend hold truth

And banish fake news.

 

Then another friend gently corrected my haiku’s second line, by writing, “I think you mean ‘from my friend hold the real truth,’ right?”

 

That’s two instances of inspiration in one week!  But not only does my creativity remain diminished, but I have lost my ability to count to seven.  That’s haiku deficiency. 

 

(After extensive research, I discovered that the plural of haiku is haiku.  One haiku, two haiku, red haiku, blue haiku.)

 

From these experiences I conclude that my brain is beyond fried.  Creativity jumped out the window a while ago, and is lying on the pavement. It’s not clear if it is ever going to come crawling back.   

 

I have much to rejoice about, but angst still tinges everything.  Here in Pennsylvania, democracy seems more threatened than ever, and most citizens have turned their attention elsewhere.  Who can blame them?  We are all exhausted, which is, for some political operatives, the desired outcome.  There are complete nuts who have been elected to Congress, and their party supports them wholeheartedly.   I see little progress on racial justice.  I recently found out that the Senate Russell Building is named after a white supremacist.  My grief over my mother’s death is not overwhelming, but always there.

 

But I did get the car washed.  I changed the sheets.  I called the legislators.  And I made the orange-cranberry-nut bread, finding solace in chopping the cranberries and the nuts.

Let’s all chop the nuts.  Therein lies healing.

There is also some solace to be found in Peach Schnapps.

The recipe:

Cranberry Orange Nut Bread A.k.a. Holiday Cranberry Bread From the Pillsbury Cookbook we received as a wedding present. 1 cup sugar 1 Tablespoon grated orange peel ¾ cup water ⅓ cup orange juice 2 Tablespoons oil 1 egg 2 cups all purpose flour 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon baking soda 1 cup halved fresh or frozen whole cranberries 1 cup chopped nuts Heat oven to 350 F. Prepare the cranberries, orange zest, and nuts. Grease 9x5-inch loaf pan (or 3 smaller loaf pans, muffin pan for 16 muffins). In large bowl, blend sugar, orange peel, water, orange juice, oil, and egg; mix well. Add flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda, stirring just until moistened. Stir in cranberries and nuts. Pour into prepared pan(s). Bake at 350 F for 50-60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. (Bake for less time for smaller loaf pans or muffins.) Cool 10 minutes; remove from pan. Cool completely. Wrap tightly and store in refrigerator. Makes 1 (16-slice) loaf OR 3 mini loaves OR 16 muffins.

Favorite Books Read in 2020

 

In 2020 I finished 37 books, of which 

5 children/YA books, 

5 shorter works, 

4 memoirs,

2 biographies (including Santa Claus: A Biography)

1 poetry volume,

0 plays, and 

2 books of the Bible.  

20 fiction, 17 nonfiction.

The best fiction I read in 2020

The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead. © 2019.

Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens.  First published 1860-1861.  

The best non-fiction I read in 2020

The Warmth of Other Suns:  The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson.  © 2010.  

Mistakes were made (but not by me): Why we justify foolish beliefs, bad decisions, and hurtful acts , by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson , © 2007, 2015.  I can’t say that the prose is as elegant as Wilkerson’s, but I keep coming back to the ideas presented in this book.  

These Truths:  A History of the United States, by Jill Lepore. © 2018.  Strictly speaking, I read this during 2018, 2019 and 2020.  

In the OMG category

Twisted Twenty-Six (Stephanie Plum Book 26), by Janet Evanovich.  © 2019.

A light read for book club.  Quite amusing, with some really outlandish scenes.

Books I re-read in 2020

Ruth, the Bible.  Probably written in the 5th Century BCE.

I re-read this to prepare in a hurry to co-lead our church women’s retreat, when our scheduled leader was not able to attend due to illness.

The Gospel of Matthew, the Bible.  Written ~85 CE.

A speed reading to try to see real quick what Jesus would do. 

Least Favorite

Triggered:  How the left thrives on hate and wants to silence us, by Donald Trump Jr. , © 2019. 

Usually if I don’t like a book, I quit reading it.  But this book was supposed to help me not stay in “my bubble” so I valiantly finished it, taking one for the team.

A citizen's comments about "These Truths" by Jill Lepore

Comments about These Truths:  A History of the United States, by Jill Lepore. © 2018.  

In The Federalist No. 1, Alexander Hamilton asked:

It seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.

And rewording his question, Dr. Lepore asks:

Can a political society really be governed by reflection and election, by reason and truth, rather than by accident and violence, by prejudice and deceit?  Is there any arrangement of government – any constitution – by which it’s possible for a people to rule themselves, justly and fairly, and as equals, through the exercise of judgment and care?  Or are their efforts, no matter their constitutions, fated to be corrupted, their judgment muddled by demagoguery, their reason abandoned for fury?  (page xiv)

The “truths” of the Declaration of Independence and of Lepore’s title are:

 three political ideas  - “these truths,” Thomas Jefferson called them – political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people.  (page xiv)

Lepore asks:  “Does American history prove these truths, or does it belie them?” (page xiv)

The main points I took from this book are:  

a) White supremacy screwed up our nation from the beginning. Even though slavery “officially” was ended, the effects are with us still.  White supremacy works directly counter to those three political ideas referenced in the Declaration of Independence, and it remains to be seen if this nation can overcome it.

b) It’s the fault of greedy folks and the competent lobbyists they hired that we didn’t get universal health care in the 20th century.  

c) As I suspected, income inequality and wealth inequality are a huge threat to democracy.

d) Political polling is bad for us.  

e) The internet has made our inequality worse.

Here’s the end of Lepore's epilogue, written after the 2016 election of Pres. Donald Trump, but, notably, before the 2020 election.

… Can a people govern themselves by reflection and choice? [Alexander] Hamilton had wanted to know, or are they fated to be ruled, forever, by accident and force, lashed by the violence of each wave of a surging sea?

The ship of state lurched and reeled.  Liberals, blown down by the slightest breeze, had neglected to trim the ship’s sails, leaving the canvas to flap and tear in a rising wind, the rigging flailing.  Huddled belowdecks, they had failed to plot a course, having lost sight of the horizon and their grasp on any compass. On deck, conservatives had pulled up the ship’s planking to make bonfires of rage: they had courted the popular will by demolishing the idea of truth itself, smashing the ship’s very mast.

It would fall to a new generation of Americans, reckoning what their forebears had wrought, to fathom the depths of the doom-black sea.  If they meant to repair the tattered ship, they would need to fell the most majestic pine in a deer-haunted forest and raise a new mast that could pierce the clouded sky.  With sharpened adzes, they would have to hew timbers of cedar and oak into planks, straight and true.  They would need to drive home nails with the untiring swing of might arms and, with needles held tenderly in nimble finders, stitch new sails out of the rugged canvas of their goodwill.  Knowing that heat and sparks and hammers and anvils are not enough, they would have to forge an anchor in the glowing fire of their ideals. And to steer that ship through wind and wave, they would need to learn an ancient and nearly forgotten art:  how to navigate by the stars.  (pp 786-787)

I think we have yet to find out if the ship of state will be repaired.  Certainly in Pennsylvania the fate of democracy is still threatened, as Republican legislators will seek to gerrymander judicial districts early in 2021; as Republican Congressional leaders from PA question the outcome of the very election they just won; as PA state Republican legislators signal that they wish to remove the recently-won ability for us to vote by mail, which they themselves voted for overwhelmingly.  

I am the first to say that in a two-party system, we need both parties to be viable and ultimately focused on good governance, rather than party power.  In our history, the Democratic Party is not faultless in veering away from good governance. But right now, the threat that I see in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania comes from the Republican Party seeking, in the face of an inability to win elections based on policy ideas and fine candidates, to hold onto power by whatever means they find, including destruction of democracy.

Pennsylvanians, pay close and special attention to this coming attempt to form judicial districts for state-wide judgeships.  Judges are not meant to have constituents.  This is an attempt by the Republican-heavy legislature (accomplished through gerrymandering) to seize more power for their party and take it away from citizens.  It’s going to be hard to fight this one and win, but I feel it is worthwhile to fight it.

What will we choose for our future?  Can we choose for our future, or is it too late?

First Lines: Nov-Dec 2020 edition

So many pages, so little time,
but at least some of them are footnotes.

My reading in the last two months of the year brought me a delicious moment:  the moment when you find out that the 900+ page book you have been reading for over a year is 35% footnotes.  Oh, delicious revelation, that I could finish reading this monumental tome!  

Most of the time, in these past two months, it was a struggle to concentrate on reading anything at all.  It’s normal to cry (isn’t it?), twenty-three days after your mother died; during a pandemic with cases of virus on the rise; when you haven’t seen your grown daughter and her fiancé in 11 months; when the election you risked your life for, by processing in-person voters during that pandemic, is questioned all across the nation and even in your own county.  

Some days I carry on with work and household tasks, without a care in the world.  But on other days, doing anything feels like walking through a pit of wet sand.  On those days, tasks can be accomplished, but only with enormous effort.  This seems to be the nature of my particular cross-section of personal and civic grief.  Reading has been alternately a joy and a chore.

Here are the first lines of the eight books that I managed to finish reading in November and December.

Book 1
Opening the Polls
Check Materials
Use the checklist below to confirm you have all items needed to open the polls.

Book 2
This morning, Papa call me inside the parlor.  
He was sitting inside the sofa with no cushion and looking at me.  Papa have this way of looking me one kind.  


Book 3  
Christmas is the most important season of our existence. We spend at least one month out of each year of our lives under the spell of the planet’s most widely celebrated holiday.


Book 4
I was in a coffee shop looking through the want ads when I read, “Macy’s Herald Square, the largest store in the world, has big opportunities for outgoing, fun-loving people of all shapes and sizes who want more than just a holiday job!  Working as an elf in Macy’s SantaLand means being at the center of the excitement…”


Book 5
The “Red Death” had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous.


Book 6
The librarian and her mule spotted it at the same time.  The creature’s ears shot up, and it came to a stop so sudden its front hooves skidded out, the pannier slipping off, spilling out the librarian’s books. 


Book 7
Chapter 1: An Elephant, a Funeral, and More Bad News
Monday March 11, 1897
As the hail bounced on the carriage roof, Mink suddenly wondered whether she ought to buy mourning knickers.


Book 8
Introduction: The Question Stated
The course of history is unpredictable, as irregular as the weather, as errant as affection, nations rising and falling by whim and chance, battered by violence, corrupted by greed, seized by tyrants, raided by rogues, addled by demagogues.  



The titles and authors revealed:

Book 1
Allegheny County Election Officer Handbook, for General Election 2020, by Allegheny County Elections Division


Book 2
The Girl with the Louding Voice, by Abi Dare  © 2020.  About a teenaged girl in Nigeria.  Read for book club.  Trigger warning: sexual violence and modern-day slavery.  I thought it was a story well told.


Book 3
Santa Claus: A Biography, by Gerry Bowler  © 2005
A congenial review of how the figure of Santa Claus got to be so prominent in our culture.  But the last chapter degrades into a diatribe a la “war on Christmas” which I found distasteful.   

By the way, I take issue with this book’s opening thesis statement.  The “Christmas season” is only as important as an individual chooses to make it.  Viscerally, I prefer the season of autumn.  The holidays I prefer are Thanksgiving and Advent.  But the book club likes to read a book focused on the winter holidays, and it’s damned hard to find good books for adults about winter holidays.    


Book 4
“SantaLand Diaries”, in the collection Holidays on Ice, by David Sedaris
I finished this essay-memoir, which I found to be quite amusing.  The next two selections in the collection were horrifying to me, so I didn’t finish the entire book.  


Book 5
The Masque of the Red Death, by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1842.

This was just weird.  I can’t even name what genre of literature this is.  I had to read it when my brother began ominously referencing walking through rooms of different colors, just so I would know what he was talking about.  This story, or allegory, or whatever it is, is highly relevant today.  I recommend it.

You can find it for free here at The Project Gutenberg.  It's about 8 pages long.


Book 6
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, by Kim Michele Richardson. © 2019.     

A novel about the “Blue people” of Kentucky.  These people have a congenital blood defect which makes their skin blue.  The book takes place during the Great Depression in Kentucky.  The Blue people are discriminated against, just as Black people are.  A doctor discovers a remedy that renders the skin ‘white’, but only temporarily.   Once again, book club leads me to learn something I knew nothing about.  The style of writing was okay.


Book 7
The Pigeon Pie Mystery by Julia Stuart.
A light-hearted mystery to finish out the year.  I was not paying too much attention to the details of the mystery, but found the characters and scenes very amusing.


Book 8
These Truths:  A History of the United States, by Jill Lepore. © 2018.  

I first started reading this in late 2018. It took me two years to finish, but finish I did!  This book is 900+ pages.  It was not until I got near the end that I found out that fully 35% of the book is footnotes and bibliography!   That said, it is still 787 pages of reading material, but worth reading.

I will put my comments about it in this separate post.

What about you?  What are you reading?  

Thanksgiving Survey 2020: Animals

 It's time for the Common Household time-honored tradition of the

Thanksgiving survey

2020 Topic: Animals

1. The bird that we in the United States call “turkey” is not from Turkey - it is native to the North American continent.   If you could rename the creature we call ‘turkey’, what more appropriate name would you give to this bird?

2.  Name an animal that you are thankful for, and the reason for your gratitude.

Bonus:  What is the turkey thankful for on Thanksgiving?

Please participate by giving your answers in the comments.  Happy Thanksgiving Preparation Week!

The topic of animals seems appropriate, because 2020 has been mostly a beastly year.

The first question arises from a dinner discussion we had recently.  The North American turkey is native to our continent, so why is it named after a country on another continent?    The name of this creature is all over the place, literally.  In French it is dinde, which means “from India”.  But in Hindi (a language of India) it is called… tarki.   In Portuguese, it is peru.  It seems like no language has gotten the name of this bird right.

The famed Common Household turkey pillow.

One form of a vegetarian turkey.

Not a turkey, but resembles one in certain ways.